The view of “morality” according to the NAP:
“I push someone out of the way of a bus to save their life = aggressive force (immoral).”
“Someone pushes me off their boat and into the water, drowning me = defense of property (moral). My death was the cause of nature. The person who pushed me into the water was just exercising control over his property.”
What do you think of that?
It’s certainly not consistent with what I call the NAP. In the second example, I think the boat owner committed murder if the other person drowned as a direct result of being pushed off the boat and into the water.
Wrong application of the NAP in both scenarios.
I’ll add that, while I think pushing a person out of the way of a bus would constitute aggression prima facie, I also think it’s legitimate for the person who was pushed to forgive it ex post facto.
That sums it up
Wasn’t that the plot from the Incredibles, Mr. Incredible gets sued by a guy for saving his life when he jumped from a building and injured in the rescue attempt 
We don’t know the circumstances of how he got on the boat. Firstly, one can only morally use as much force to stop an aggression as was used to commit it, lest one go beyond that into aggression yourself.
So, should someone sneak on a boat, you’re justified in dropping them off at the next stop and forcibly removing them. Pushing them into a life-threatening situation would be going beyond that, I think, since their sneaking on board did not force a life-threatening situation on you.
As I understand NAP, pushing a person out of the way of a bus would in fact be a violation whereas letting them get hit would be an NAP-neutral act. I would push the person, and so would almost anyone else, and the other guy wouldn’t have any real grievance to take up with me. If I hit him too hard out of fear and actually did physical damage, he’d be right to expect me to make amends. Likewise if I overreact to an attack, and do more damage to my attacker than they were threatening or actually applying to me, I’d be in the wrong again. NAP would authorize me to use equal force as a last resort against an attack, but not GREATER than equal force.
Example #1 is why people have personal moral codes. NAP is, in my opinion, must be the foundation of a legitimate personal code of morals or list of personal values. But it’s the basis, not the whole, of the process.
Pretty much right.
Absolutely. Some people tend to forget or not understand the role of forgiveness. Forgiveness is a signal that an act that would otherwise be considered a crime should not be considered a crime or should be punished to a lesser degree. People do not have the time to contemplate all the different possible scenarios that could occur and decide whether they personally would consider something to be a crime. Let’s look at the following scenarios:
A teenager vandalizes a church.
A homeless man breaks into a church in order to seek shelter.
The priest that runs the church has some choices. He might be willing to forgive the teenager of his crime on the condition that he clean and restore what he damaged. The priest might be willing to forgive the homeless man after considering his circumstances. Perhaps the priest knows that particular teenager, and he has defaced the church before. The priest might be less willing to forgive the vandal. He might want a lot more in restitution than just restoration.
We could examine all sorts of possible choices the priest might make regarding these two acts of aggression. And these are only two possible crimes that could be committed. Are we to expect that this priest ought to sit down and reason out what he considers to be a crime against him or his church before they take place? That would be ridiculous.
Forgiveness is an important signal precisely because it allows people to make these decisions after the fact. The priest can decide if the homeless man seeking shelter is really a crime or not. He might change his opinion over time. It’s the same with the first scenario the OP provided. We all might say to ourselves that we would want to be saved from an oncoming bus. Okay, but at what cost? I might be grateful to be alive, but what if my savior breaks my legs? Or my arms? What if he paralyzes me? Do I really need to consider all the possible options before such a scenario occurs? Can I really expect others to do that?
No, that would be absurd. If someone saves me from a bus by pushing me out of the way, I get to decide after the fact if that is a crime. Most people would be grateful, but even if we get a few jerks who want to sue for being shoved, so what? How much money are they really going to receive in restitution? Would the “restitution” even be worth the cost of court?
/rant
The NAP is a principle. By definition, to be consistent there must be no exceptions to it, which causes problems for inconsistent alleged supporters who don’t want to look bad (because they can’t form the correct defense, because they don’t actually understand anything about it). If you support the NAP, by definition you support it ALWAYS.
Take the OP for example. “morality” is in quotes, or in parenthesi. The NAP says nothing about morals. The NAP is a propertarian rule, describing a grund norm which SHOULD be followed to have efficient use of property in a SOCIAL environment. Morals are bullshit, which is why nobody actually has anything consistently principled to say about them.
Stephen Kinsella points this out in the very beginning in What Libertarianism Is
I don’t think it’s fair to say that morals are bullshit because they aren’t consistent across the board. All value is subjective, whether you’re talking about moral value or monetary value.
NAP is the standard by which we can judge the sort of right-of-way of property, but it isn’t the way we assign relative value to actions.
When morals contradict NAP, there’s a choice to be made and it comes down to the acceptance of guilt. If you act out of accord with NAP you automatically accept the consequences, if the other guy chooses to press the matter. Whether or not they do would depend on THEIR personal values and assessment of the possible advantage of doing so.
Moral choices are cost/benefit choices, but the currency is considered to be other than physical. That’s not really the realm of NAP.
“I push someone out of the way of a bus to save their life = aggressive force (immoral).”
Yes.
“Someone pushes me off their boat and into the water, drowning me = defense of property (moral). My death was the cause of nature. The person who pushed me into the water was just exercising control over his property.”
Possibly. It depends on the terms of the agreement that was made between the two persons. That is, is the non-owner’s right to be on the boat contingent only on the owner’s permission, or might the non-owner have a right to be on the boat under certain conditions even if the owner disapproves? What determines the answer to these question is the agreement made between the two parties.For example, if the agreement was that the non-owner would be allowed on the boat for the duration of the trip unless he misbehaved (however that might have been defined), then the owner would have no right to toss the non-owner off the boat unless he had misbehaved. This case is very easily resolved if there’s a written contract. But what if there is no written contract? My view is that intent of the parties concerned is a necessary and sufficient condition for property rights to change hands. What this means is that in some property dispute where there is no written contract, the judge/arbitrator has to use whatever evidence is available to try and determine what each party intended, since what they intended determined what and how property rights were assigned. Regarding the boat incident, if there was an agreement (even if unstated) that the non-owner would be allowed on the boat until the end of the trip, regardless of any other considerations, then the owner violated the property rights of the non-owner by throwing him overboard, and is liable for damages resulting from that action. A judge/arbitrator looking at a real case like this is not going to have any way of actually reconstructing the agreement, since it was never recorded in any way, and the one party is dead, so he should assume that the agreement was reasonable, using his own judgment to determine what a reasonable agreement would be. And presumably, it would not be reasonable to agree to get onto a boat knowing that the other party could rightfully toss you overboard in the middle of the ocean, and hence the judge would find that such was not part of the agreement, and that therefore the owner committed a tort by throwing the non-owner overboard.
“I push someone out of the way of a bus to save their life = aggressive force (immoral).”
I don’t understand why so many people use this bogus “argument” against the NAP. If the bus driver has the right to drive on the road, then blocking the way of the bus clearly violates the property rights of the bus owner (and possibly of the road owner, too). It’s perfectly legitimate to prevent someone from aggressing against the bus owner.
I’ll add that, while I think pushing a person out of the way of a bus would constitute aggression prima facie, I also think it’s legitimate for the person who was pushed to forgive it ex post facto.
It’s not aggression, it’s an act of saving the other person. Use the action axiom, means and ends. The end was to save the other person from getting hit. The means was to push him out of the way. When you say it’s legitimate for the other person to forgive, that makes it seem like they can choose not to forgive and would then be entitled to damages. That wouldn’t be the case.
As I understand NAP, pushing a person out of the way of a bus would in fact be a violation whereas letting them get hit would be an NAP-neutral act.
Letting them get hit is NAP-neutral, but pushing them out of the way would be a violation. If they later say they preferred to get hit, they can jump right back out on the highway and do so. Otherwise, you have done them a huge favor and it’s not aggression.
Payment of restitution for the tresses passes of property is certainly not death but usually a fine or other kind of restitution to settle the matter. Lex talons is all good but I seldom lay use it because a lot of people exploit this rule for revenge and not justification to settle a wrong.
it is muchbetter to wip yur slave 49 times tout of 50 instead of giving him 51 lashes
as far as te push out of bus, it is ok to save someone’s life like this but if the person feels like you did wrong then it is a matter of settling the issue (thouh I doubt anyone will want to fine someone that saved their life)
A push is an aggressive act regardless of context, regardless of motives.
The motives is why the pushee will forgive the pusher.
If we begin taking motives into account rather than objective actions, we quickly run into contradictions, like saying it’s okay to use aggression to tax someone because it’s for the benefit of society :\
If you push someone to save them and end up injuring them too, they could in theory still sue. Lots of would-be rescuers have also made the situation worse by trying and have been legitimately sued also. Like the girl with a broken neck whose rescuers picked her up and by that made her into a quadraplegic.
as far as te push out of bus, it is ok to save someone’s life like this but if the person feels like you did wrong then it is a matter of settling the issue
They would have to prove you did them wrong. They can do this by jumping out in front of the next bus.
You make an interesting point.
A push is an aggressive act regardless of context, regardless of motives.
Be careful not to jump definitions. Aggressive, in the way you use it, is not derived from Aggression as libertarians use the term for the NAP. I might aggressively (making an all-out effort to win or succeed) save someone’s life without committing aggression, in the libertarian sense of the word.
The motives is why the pushee will forgive the pusher.
Let us concern ourselves with a case where the pushee does not forgive. Would you sersiously support his claim of damages? That would be silly.
If we begin taking motives into account rather than objective actions, we quickly run into contradictions, like saying it’s okay to use aggression to tax someone because it’s for the benefit of society :\
That’s not a contradiction, it’s simply wrong. We have to take ends, motives as you say, into account, because it is an inherent part of human action. We cannot say what an act is without the human intent. Without the intent, it is not fully an act.
When I push someone out of the way of a bus, my action is to save their life. If my action has been one of saving a life, this is not aggression, pure and simple.
If you push someone to save them and end up injuring them too, they could in theory still sue. Lots of would-be rescuers have also made the situation worse by trying and have been legitimately sued also. Like the girl with a broken neck whose rescuerspicked her up and by that made her into a quadraplegic.
But this doesn’t advance your argument. If I am negligent and do more harm than good in my attempt to save someone, then I must pay restitution, of course. This has nothing to do with whether or not a shove must always be an act of aggression.